Big Tech Earnings, Trump Media Stock Plunge, and Guest Margaret Brennan

This episode is brought to you by Uninvesting, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. I'm Kathy Jones, Schwab's Chief Fixing From Strategist, and on Lizance Anders Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist. Between us, we have decades of experience studying the indicators that drive the economy and how they can have a direct impact on your investments. We know that investors have a lot of questions about the markets and the economy, and we're

here to help. So download the latest episode and subscribe at www.swab.com slash on investing or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from the Solidime, creating highly advanced AI's complicated, especially if you don't have the right storage or critical, but often overlooked catalysts for AI infrastructures. Solidime is storage optimized for the AI era, offering bigger, faster, and more energy efficient solid state storage. Solidime delivers the capability to meet capacity,

performance, and energy demands across your AI data workloads. AI requires a different approach to storage. Solidime is ready for everything the AI era demands. Learn more at storage for AI.com. I was surprised. It is visibly, observably tense in the US right now. Yes, indeed. I was at a fundraiser on Saturday for Jed, which focuses on a wonderful nonprofit that focuses

on works with high schools to help with teen mental health and suicide prevention. I was giving a talk and out of the blue, someone from a corner yelled, Trump 2024, and then someone else on the other side felt compelled to start booing him. This is a fundraiser for teen mental health. Right. Why did they do that? What did that Trump person do that? Well, I don't know. But everyone you talk to seems very tense, very polarized, very

on edge. One of the things I really appreciate about the UK is that here elections run six weeks from start to finish. It does seem that everyone just sort of is like kind of non-plussed a little bit by the results and then they just keep calm and carry on. I could not get over how tense it felt in the US. Do you feel that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Everywhere you go. It's really nuts. It's really crazy. It's very

hard to find humor in it. Sometimes there's humor in political campaigns. But I think the ugliness level led by the Republicans really is gotten to a point and then the Democrats respond. I don't think politics should be funny, but it also should be feel like you're one country, I guess, in some regard. And it doesn't feel like that. On either side, they went, feel like the people have been ginned up so much that Kamala Harris is the devil

essentially. And the people on the other side are another Trump administration's disastrous for our country. I think it's really, they feel like it's existential in some weird way. I mean, it's not weird way it is. It feels, in fact, it feels existential, including people who are not that, I wouldn't say dramatic, are saying that, you know, are very worried. And so, and I think the inclusion of the world's richest man, I'm sorry, with the money

feels like he's buying an election, right? That's weird. You know, you say it's a podcast election. I say it's an Elon election, right? It can, can billionaires buy their way. I mean, rich people always have, but not in this explicit and naked and attempt to help their own interests. You're not think people would say that about Kennedy and his father and what happened in

the election? Yes, but it wasn't, this is naked. Like, I guess we always knew it, but this feels so naked and explicit and transactional that it's, you know, I guess we kind of kind of believe a little bit that we're like not like that, but then they hear it is,

right? I think that's really what's, I think, created the real tension in the situation is that this, the richest man in the world who is an immigrant to this country is displaying so much ranker, creating so much division, even more so than Trump, I can't believe it if that's possible. And I think that's what's sort of getting on people's nerves. It's sort of, you know, I was saying this to someone, it's ironic that a week before, but on Halloween week, all the masks are off.

Well, I recognize that my kids know very little about elections. So I've been trying to teach them about democracy. So just as an exercise last night, I let them vote on dinner and they picked pizza, but then I ordered Indian because we don't live in a swing state. Very funny. Scott trying to stop the moon, trying to lighten the mood, trying to lighten the mood. Anyway, we had a lot to get to do, including the latest earnings from alphabet

Microsoft and meta, which is a few days into the election. Joe Biden creates a headache for Democrats, which I think is not, is it not nothing for everybody did it. And Donald Trump makes some creepy new comments about women, which is was, you know, par for the course, just another Tuesday. Plus, we'll get some last minute political analysts from

our friend of pivot face the nation host, Margaret Brennan. But first, former president's Trump's true social was briefly worth more than Elon Musk's acts, which has been declining in value as we've talked about before. Two social parent company was shortly valued over $10 billion, while X Holdings is valued at $9.4 billion. And that's probably being generous. The Trump media stock was briefly halted several times a week for moving

so sharply, it's gone up and down. It really is interesting. There's a lot of weird movement in this stock. I'd love to really actually see the transactions. Meanwhile, the parent company lost more than $16 million in the quarter ending June. And it doesn't have very many people on it, which of course, this is not about its, its fundamental business issues. However, on Wednesday, Trump himself lost $1.3 billion in net worth after the

worst trading day ever for the, for the company. We do disagree on why this is happening. I think there's a lot of gaming going on here. And I would love to see the logs of who's buying. But say more about what you mean by that. Well, if you're someone who wants to support Trump, like these polymarkets, everyone's like, oh, Peter P. Allones it, like people, and that turned out there was one trade in France from one guy, you know, that made it, made it go up. So we're all like, oh, Trump's

winning, but he's not because one guy did it, right? And so I worry this stock is being manipulated by Trump adjacent people. And who knows who they could be to make it go up and down. I don't think this is a bunch of like, and maybe it's Wall Street gaming the situation. It feels very game. Like on some level, the way it's gone up, because getting away from the fundamentals of the company, which both of us absolutely agree is a piece

of shit, right? It's a shit sandwich inside a shit, you know, pie, whatever. It's, it seems unusual that this is happening. I don't think it's popular sentiment. It's some other sentiment. And you think differently, you think differently. Well, it's an, it's an interesting thesis. And that is that if, if a stock or a poll indicates that Trump is likely to win, that it gives people confidence or incentive or momentum on the Trump side. And then I've also heard

a counter theory. And that is, it's being manipulated by a, a wealthy Democrat who wants to give Republican voters a sense. It's in the bags such that people stay on the couch. I can see. Oh, I didn't hear that one. That's fascinating. Yeah. That's my friend Whitney Tillson, who sends out a really soft, fully email almost every day. So I can see someone manipulating, well, let me back up. This is what I think is going on. Polymarked, Calstras, that has come. Yeah.

Anyway, there's a bunch of them that are basically weight-dring sites where you can bet on, amongst other things, every state, you can bet on margin of victory and you can bet on the election. And right now on Polymark it, it has a Trump at 62, approximately 62 or 63 and Harris at

37 or 38%. That is, that is a wide margin. And I think the logical thesis, or the most obvious one, and kind of Occam's razor, I think the one that probably is correct, is that the kind of person that goes to a site in bets on an election is probably younger, probably more male in those people skew heavily Trump. Because if you look at the actual data, I mean, the majority of the data across the A-plus list polling sites says that it's

pretty much a toss-up. And so if you are a betting person, I mean, I'm actually thinking of doing this just for fun. I might put some money on Harris and Polymark, because this is what it means. If you bet $100 on Harris and she wins, you get approximately $287 or almost triple your money. And if someone said you care bet on this coin flip and you don't know. And I would describe the election right now as from, there's the data I see trying

to be on as unemotional as possible as a coin flip. But if someone said you care you bet $100 and you pick heads or tails. And if you win, you get $287, you would do that because it takes symmetric upside. Absolutely. In fact, let's do it. Let's do it. Well, that's absolutely what I'm thinking because not that I'm hopeful, but I'm not that confident. I think it's literally a coin flip. But if on a coin flip, you're getting $287,

then again, you have disproportionate upside. So I think the thesis that these markets are driven by who bets which way are the other. The most obvious explanation is it to people. It's like, I do you remember when Floyd Mayweather fought Conor McGregor? The, you know, I do. Anyways, this UFC fighter, this wider than white guy, red hair Irish guy, he's actually

not that great an MMA fighter. He's just very loud and obnoxious. Well, anyways, and he fought Floyd Mayweather who arguably has the fastest hands in the history of boxing. But the odds were much tighter because I think I think people still like the idea. I think there's some unconscious racism where people like the idea of the white guy beating up or winning the, you know, beating the black guy. There's always throughout the history of boxing.

There's always a little bit of bias for the white guy, the great white hopes, so to speak. Right. And the best bet or the easiest bet was on Floyd Mayweather fighting an okay MMA fighter that has never boxed before. Anyway, my point is you're getting asymmetric upside to the notion of who won that thing. I don't even know. Conor McGregor's credit, he fought a competent fight, but Floyd Mayweather nominated and won

as he should have. But the thing that I don't think is being manipulated for Trump's favor is the stock because the stock is, the stock was almost at 100 a couple years ago. It's been as low as 12. So I don't know if that's sending signals into the marketplace.

Why not? Why couldn't one or, listen to that? This is an interesting fortune. Had a really interesting investigation and separate investigations completed by the blockchain firms, KS labs and Incadigital and shared exclusive fortune analyst found that polymarket activity, the signs of wash trading, a form of market manipulation, where shares are bought and sold often simultaneously

and repeatedly to create a false impression of volume and activity. KS labs found that wash trading consisted of around one third of trading volume and polymarket's presidential market. Well, Incadigital found that a significant portion of volume on the market could be attributed to potential wash trading. The other ones, they're looking at those too. I think you could

do the same thing with this stock. Very little needs to trade to make it go up. And if you wanted, I was intrigued by the democratic thing, make them feel confident and then, you know, put $100 for each of us on that. Will you do that? Will you do that? And I'll, oh, yeah, 100%. I might do a little bit more than that. But anyways, I buy the thesis around the polls because around the betting sites, because a lot of media reports on the betting

sites. And when the media reports that according to polymarket or CalShi that Trump is almost two to one favored, that sends a signal that's probably on the whole good for the Trump campaign. Where the stock is, I don't think does much around a signal or confidence or lack there of. I don't think it creates much of a echo effect in favor of one candidate or the other. I would short that stock like nobody's business. Just it won't you wouldn't like, well,

it could just rise. Yeah, you could know you could rise. You got to be very careful shorting to stock like that because if he wins, there's a scenario where it goes a hundred bucks on November the six. And you know, the dangerous thing about short selling is your losses are unlimited. Yeah, that's true. Anyways, but I guess what I'm saying is I absolutely buy

your thesis around manipulating and the incentive around manipulating the betting markets. I'm not sure I see the connection to incentive around manipulating one, two, it doesn't need that many. I'd like to see it. I'd like to actually see the trading. And it will see

what happens when we go forward. Let's move on to things other things. Apple released its first set of Apple intelligence features for the iPhone, iPad and Mac this week, the road includes notification and email summaries, text writing tools, image editing and improved series, stuff we're kind of used to already. The response of course has not been overwhelming positive with a number of views calling new features underwhelming. And I think they

are because we've been using them on Google and everything else. But as Tim Cook noted an interview with a WSJ magazine last week, the technology would take some iteration. It's not about being first, but best. Apple intelligence help iPhone sales and how long do they have to deliver real changes to Apple phones to make technology worth? But they aren't making the investment other people are. They're just using the investments other people are

making. So probably a good bet for my what I can tell. Yeah, well, we talked about this. The concept that Apple, I think the reason that the stock is trading at an old, you know, historic high in terms of multiple on earnings, it's all time high in terms of the actual stock price is that one, it continues to be sort of a safe place for growth and continue dominance.

Great execution, great management, unbelievable cash flows, the most profitable product in the history of mankind is on a gross profit level, the iPhone and maybe the App Store on a gross margin basis. But what I think people got excited about was the business model. Basically they said Apple is going to not get into this arms race. It's going to be a

weapons manufacturer. It's going to be on the right side of this arms race. And that is it will ultimately position their Apple intelligence as someone who they co-brand and probably get some enormous licensing fee from and they're not entering into this multi 10, 20, 50 billion dollar arms race trying to develop their own unique LLM strategy. They're going to leverage every other ones, CapEx. But in terms of the actual product offering, underwhelming

is probably the right term so far. It really isn't, I mean, it's not like you turned on, you pull a iOS and think, wow, AI is really changing things. It's not, it, you know, things like main features unfailed include graphic used, indicate the presence of AI and apps, getting tools, okay, and AI eraser and photos for editing and notification summaries. If, if they hadn't said AI, you would have just thought these were kind of small incremental

upgrades. Wouldn't have even noticed. And so look, but it's the business model that's got people that they don't have to pay so much for the benefits, right? Well, they've said we're not getting you to this arms. I mean, to be viable in this thing, you have to be rate, you have to be allocating $10, 50, $100 billion over the next three, five years.

And Apple said, I have an idea rather than investing $10, 50, $100 billion, why don't we collect 10 or 20 billion a year from whoever wants their logo in front of the billion wealthiest consumers? Yeah. And Apple shares are up the last six months in a year to date by quite a bit, 25% because they don't, they aren't making these massive investments. You know, we'll see you how they roll it out. No, of course, as most people

know, these things get better as they're used, right? And they figure out, and I think they'll probably do the best job of deploying the usages. I find a lot of the, I say I use Gmail, I find their how, can you want me to help you write this? You want me to say it? I find it annoying and not helpful. I wish I could turn it off for the most part, including in the search where they give me an answer that I wasn't looking for. I just

don't think it's yet yielded. What? Maybe it will help us do. And I suspect Apple will be the best place for doing that. But it is underwhelming so far. And speaking of all the investments, let's get to our first big story. Scott has spent a big week for tech earnings. We're going to focus in on tech earnings. First up, Microsoft stock is down 4% after beating expectations for quarterly revenue and earnings, but forecasting slower than

expected growth. The company's revenue increased 16% net income rose 11%, very strong performance. Spectro said its AI business is on track to surpass an annual run rate of $10 billion in X quarter. But CFO Amy hoods, as you expect, my shop to take a $1.5 billion hit to income mostly because of expected loss from open AI. As for gaming, Microsoft said Xbox content and services revenue, 61% driven by activism acquisition. So I suppose we could ignore

that pretty much. This AI, such as 70% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft 365 co-pilot for at least some employees. Just a lot of big spending here for what they're doing, right? From what I can tell, well, let's just do a quick kind of round the world on the tech earnings here because there was a bunch of them. All right, let me go to meta then. Okay, meta shares are down 2%. The company's revenue is up 19% to $0.6 billion in profit

was up 35% very impressive. The growth is already driven by advancements and advertising at targeting, which company says comes from its investments in AI. That's the real plus here. But the company also raised its annual spending forecast to $38 to $40 billion in credible. It's spooked Wall Street. There's a spending on AI essentially moving to alphabet. The company's revenue grew 15% and its cloud revenue grew almost 35%. The company

said its growth is due to you guessed it is AI offerings. Google search business revenues remains the biggest contributor to revenue growth. A couple more snaps. Stock is up 21% in the last five days after sales jumped 15% in companies net loss narrowed to $153 million from $368 million. Reddit shares really are on a tear. Top $100 for the first time after reporting 68% jump in revenue. Turning profitable, you recently talked to its CEO.

I just saw him at this event. I was at with Reid Hoffman, Apple and Amazon report earnings after we tape on Thursday. That's a good look at some of these. Please, please go on, Scott. Well, there's just not getting around it. It was an outstanding, just an outstanding quarter for tech companies. What's become clear is that expectations are no longer expectations. Essentially meta exceeded revenue and earnings expectations. Its revenue is 19%. Its earnings

up 35%. The stock is down because now the expectations care in this market and tech. The expectation is that you're going to beat expectations. People are so used to quarters where these companies just blow away expectations that when they just sort of mildly beat expectations, that's not enough. The thing that people love about meta, if you will, is that its AI-driven feed and video recommendations led to an 8% increase in time spent on the core platform

and 6% increase on Instagram. When you take increased time on the platform, growth in the platform and an increase in ad rates, Nitro, meat glycerin, C4 or whatever it is, ad impressions increase 7% a year on year, and price per ad increased 11%. Also, in contrast to what we were talking about with Apple, people look at meta and say, what's spooked

it? While it has much stronger earnings, much stronger revenue growth and say, it's coming like Apple, people are spooked by the fact that meta has said, no, we're entering into this arms race because we're going to take CapEx up and we're going to go after we're not decreasing the spend in this ridiculous AR thing that everyone was hoping, but we're going to increase substantially in these AI wars. Microsoft, revenue and earnings beat,

but the stock down 4%, total revenue up 17%, that's incredible. The revenue mix is really fun. These are old companies, remember? These are old companies. Huge bases. When you grow a company 17% on 62 billion, you're growing your top line revenue. You have incremental revenue growth of $10 billion. The revenue is from Azure

Microsoft Cloud offering increased 33%, which probably increased their margin mix. Then the company that is probably the best performing IPO and tech of the last several years, reddit the recognized revenue growth of 68%. The company became profitable. The stock soared 22%. The stock has tripled since its IPO a couple months ago. Daily active users increased 47% year on year. Get this. It was the sixth most Googled word in the US. It's now being

translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German going global. International users grew 44%. Then even the little engine that's been struggling is doing well. That is snap. That was interesting. What's interesting here is snap didn't have nearly the quarter of the other folks, but it's stock jumped 10% why? The expectations, everyone's waiting for snap to get crushed. They occasionally pop up and say, no, things are pretty good

here. When they do, the stock goes up. The sales were up 15%. Losses narrowed to 150%. 14 million from about 370. The reported daily active users were up 9%. They also announced a stock repurchase program, which doesn't make sense to me when the company is losing money. But anyways, there's just no getting around it. Tech is eating the planet. What you look at here, just to link it to something else, I had dinner with a household name amazing

anchor on cable TV who makes 10s of millions of dollars. This person told me that all the negotiations that are coming up this year between the stars and the cable networks, they're being offered salary cuts of 50, 60, and 70%. Why? Because when every tech-driven media platform is growing their top line by $3, $5, $10 billion, guess what that's coming from? The traditional media ecosystem and the two are absolutely linked. This money isn't

being invented. There is some growth in the economy. People are spending more time online, but more than anything, there is a bit of a zero-sum game here. If you're in the ad-supported media game and you don't have an AI ad stack where a third of the planet is already on it, you are just fucked right now. The only ad-supported medium that is growing and bucking the trend is what Karris Wischer and Scott Galloway do right now. Podcasts are blowing

up. They haven't AI does yet, Scott. They haven't. They will. So far. So far, we're holding our own, but the media ecosystem right now is really going under fundamental change. Speaking of media ecosystem, the only thing I'll finish with here because I don't think people really consider what's going on here. If you think, what is the number one streaming player? What do you think? I don't know. Probably Netflix,

right? I think everyone would say 90% would say Netflix, but it's not. The number one streaming platform is YouTube. Oh, YouTube. Yeah. Right. But it's funny, right? We don't even think of it that way. I would have said the same thing, but they're beating them. They're combined ad and subscription revenue over the past four quarters has surpassed 50 billion. That makes them the number one highest-growing video app. Netflix is 37 billion.

So get this. YouTube is 50. Netflix is 37. And I think there's a decent chance. If Alphabet gets really scared, they may have offers a peace offering, even though it's not what the DOJ wants. Well, if they spun YouTube and they got the same multiple that's been assigned to Netflix, oh, yeah. This is a company YouTube as an independent stock would be worth approximately a half a trillion dollars, which is real, real cabbage. I'll tell you, my kids, that's what

they watch. That's what they watch YouTube. They use Reddit. They use Reddit YouTube. Snapchat is really interesting to watch their behaviors. Yeah. That's really interesting. Very good analysis, Scott. We'll see. So very quickly, very two sentences. Would you buy or sell with stock right now with the downward push around expectations? I'm sorry, which stock? All of them, the basket of text. Not only would I buy all of these companies,

my financial advice is I wouldn't buy these six companies. I buy these six companies and the other 494 in the S&P. Buy them all. You don't need to be a hero. Don't try and find the needle in the haystack. Buy the whole haystack. These companies are on fire right now, but they're also trading at really rich multiples, meaning if there is a recession,

if all of a sudden a big company announces it. Care us, say, suddenly we have terror or probably more realistically, if a big company that's been a big purchaser of GPUs or as a corporate user of AI announces that reducing their purchases of GPUs or that AI is not living up to their expectations, you are going to see the water flow out like a tsunami is coming. The ripple effect across all of these companies would be traumatic. So, yeah,

is Pepsi or is Ford or whoever it is or is Exxon, are these boring companies? Yeah, it's unlikely they're going to go down 40 or 60%. A company like Nvidia could absolutely go up 50%. It could easily go down 50%. So, you want to diversify by all of them. diversified. So buy us some common stock. Okay. Buy us in the, I'm hitting Marcus. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. How Joe Biden created an elastment

at Mess for the Democrats. We'll get some election insights and calm from Facing Nations Margaret Brennan. Support for Pivot comes from Funrise. Investing in private market real state is unique. You're not dealing with the yo-yoing whims of the stock market. Instead, you can create consistent income and unlock long term earning potential. Take the current real estate market, for example, interest rates are high, demand is low, and so are the

prices. It's a situation that funrise is trying to make the most of, which means you can do it. The funrise flagship fund is a $1.1 billion private real estate portfolio. And right now, funrise is looking to expand it. It's a fund that's designed to deliver that long-term earning potential that makes real estate investing so unique. You can get in on a diversified

portfolio of some of the tried and true real estate investment strategies. You can add funrise flagship fund to your portfolio in minutes by visiting fundrise.com slash Pivot. It's f-u-n-d-r-i-s-e.com slash Pivot. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risk, charges, and expenses of the funrise flagship fund before investing. This is another information you found in the fund's perspective at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement.

Support for this show comes from Mercury. It's time banking did more, and now it can. Your bank account is no longer just a place to hold money with Mercury or account powers all of your critical financial operations giving you greater control precision and speed. Pay bills the moment you need to and maximize your cash flow. Close the books faster by categorizing

and sinking transactions effortlessly. Send invoices and track what you're owed. Share the spending power while keeping spend in check with corporate cards and get complete and accurate visibility into it all, all in one powerful account. Apply in minutes at Mercury.com to experience how Mercury is transforming banking. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evol Bank and Trust, members FDIC.

Support for Pivot comes from AT&T. What do they feel like to get a new iPhone 16 Pro with AT&T next up anytime? It's like when you first pick up those tongs and now you're the one running the grill. It's indescribable like something you've never felt before. All the mouth-watering anticipation of new possibilities. Whether it's making a perfect cheeseburger or treating your family to a grilled baked potato, which you know will forever

change the way they look at potatoes. With AT&T next up anytime you can feel this way again and again. Learn how to get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on AT&T and the latest iPhone every year with AT&T next up anytime. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024 with Siri and device language set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. Zero dollar offer may not be

available on future iPhones. Next up anytime feature may be discontinued at any time. This subject to change. Additional fees, terms and restrictions apply. C-A-T-T dot com slash iPhone for details. Scott, we're back with our second big story inevitably given next time we talk it'll be election day is what's going on on that because it'll affect technology. It'll affect everybody. President Biden may be off the ballot but he's back in the spotlight

this week after appearing to say Trump supporters are garbage. He didn't quite say that on a call with Latino voters doesn't really matter. Biden later said he was describing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's hateful language as garbage and it was. I think that's it

looks like that's what he said but he has a problem talking sometimes. Kamala Harris has tried to distance herself from the remarks she did indeed distance herself but Trump sees on him dressing up as a garbage man which I thought was a bad idea because he said

he had garbage too. So now I'm like oh now you're making fun of I don't think any of them are well Kamala Harris tried her to get out of it but both Trump and Biden look like crazy old men and also Trump stumbled visibly stumbled when trying to get into the garbage truck

which has even got a lot of attention. He looks really old this week I have to say suddenly he looks like my mother I just I don't know what happened he suddenly you know the flat they're older so my mother's 90 compared Trump 78 I guess our Biden's comments really matter I don't think they do I don't think I'm thinking of Biden I don't know.

It was a dumb thing to say it laid in the campaign he should probably be saying nothing at this point and so it was kind of an unforced error and I have to catch all of this I'm really trying to moderate my bias and I realize it's impossible at this point but I think that the Tony Hinchcliffe's comments may in fact have a real impact on the ground.

You said that here there are some of the two motors and Porter-Rekens who are pretty pissed off and they do see some early signs that some of these folks are more excited about for Harris and they were previous these comments. Biden's comments I don't know I don't know if I was like I was like is he still here what huh.

Oh there he is I don't know but I have to say Trump did once again because he's I think he's the real fucked up saying things person this in this particular part of the election Biden was the winner on that when he was running but now Trump is really kind of lapping him quite a bit with comments he made it a rally on Wednesday because women are scared of him so what does he say let's listen.

Four weeks ago I would say no I want to protect the people I want to protect the women of our country I want to protect the women sir please don't say that why they said we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say why I'm president I want to protect the women of our country they said they said sir I just think it's inappropriate for you to say pay these guys a lot of money can you believe it.

They said well I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not I'm going to protect them I'm going to protect them from migrants coming in I'm going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit it hit us with missiles and lots of other things.

Oh creepy that gave me the creeps I'm whether they like it or not which is kind of his brand right I'm going to grab them by the pussy whether they like it or not I'm going to do whatever I want there's two more allegations of groping which is like just added to the pile of groping allegations which I think are entirely true. Many thoughts. Yeah I don't you know I talk about men's natural instinct should be a move to protection this is not what what what we mean.

Yeah I don't think that's what you're talking about. So look I don't think these things matter and unfortunately again I I believe that these outrageous comments actually help them because they crowd aren't serious conversation any serious conversation around their policies whether it's economic growth whether it's what's

inflationary whether it's expanding services such that the sandwich generation can have an easier time taking care of their parents whether it's trying to figure out a way to ensure the deficit does not result in massive interest rates on the next generation you reverse any

serious policy discussion reverse engineers to whether you like it or not perfect it's not on the menu that you should vote for Harris but we don't have a serious conversation because all the oxygen is about fucking garbage trucks. Anyway, interesting Joe Rogan you've been talking about it being the podcast election. I should say it's the election has clarified that an interview with Kamala Harris is not off the table.

Rogan posted on Exity decline the Harris campaigns offered a recording interview because he even want to travel to her and would have gotten only an hour to talk. He loves to go on for a while which they should have known. Honestly he talks for like nine hours sometimes. He discussed it a little more on his podcast. Let's listen.

You could look at this and you say all you being a diva but she had an opportunity to come here when she was in Texas and I literally gave them an open invitation I said any time I said if she's done at 10 o'clock I'll come back here at 10 o'clock. I go do it at nine in the morning I do it 10 p.m. I'll do it at midnight. She's up she wants to you know drink a red bowl fucking party on. I think she should try to talk to him still.

Trump sat down with Rogan for a three hour interview which really didn't move any needle. I don't think I don't think he did very well. He actually I did oh just agree with that if you listen to it. I think he sounded old. I did listen to that. But he did I do think it's often his image. I think that was a win for the trip. Well I felt like he felt old. That's what I got from it. Old man. Old man talking. JD Vance recorded an episode on Wednesday.

He was probably pretty good because he's sharp on those things. So you think she should still try to talk to him is she too late? Well whatever's required is she should do it because look we keep repeating this. Her going on. He's not a gotcha kind of person. I think she'll do well in that format. I agree. Sometimes when she's hard pressed on the spot for a snappy, quick Obama like or Buttigieg response, she's not good at that.

In that format and the fact that Joe I think tries to position people in their best light present them in their best light. I don't know what they're saying no matter what they're saying. Yeah exactly. Regardless of all. Measles. You know, measles vaccines too. What you're a good guy. Friend of measles. Yeah. But having said that, the thing I find a little bit off put in quite frankly is that is important to show is as wealthy as he is. I do like valuing your time. I get it.

If the vice president, if you've interviewed one candidate, you're about to interview the VP. If the vice president calls you and says I'd like to be on your podcast, you get on a fucking plane. I do think that's a little D.V.ish on his part. Now having said that, that's his right. And given that's the conditions, he's laid out. We're going on that podcast is the same exposure is just she went on MSNBC, CNN and Fox every night during prime time for a week. So should he get on a plane?

Yes. He's not, which means she should get on a plane. It's worth it. She should. She should have done it then. I think it was a mistake. I think it's a mistake. You know, he's very controversial. We get it. It doesn't matter. Just get on there and throw down with him. Drink a red bowl. He'll love you. He'll tell you, oh, wait a minute. Maybe you all should vote. It'll definitely muddy the waters. That's for sure. That's what it'll do. And that's what you kind of want.

And a follow up to our discussion from early this week, Jeff Bezos has spoken out on the Washington Post decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in an op-ed that was in desperate needed editing for the post. Bezos said, no quid pro quo of any kind was at work. We didn't necessarily think that. I acknowledge when it comes to the appearance of convict, I'm not an ideal owner of the Washington Post. I called that a no-shit Sherlock comment.

He also called out podcasts and social media posts for spreading misinformation division. I feel like he was talking about us, Scott, but I don't know, maybe, maybe all of us. I feel like off the cuff podcast, that sounds like us. What did you think of his attempts at cleaning up the mess? They've now gotten to 250,000 subscribers since the announcement that there would be no endorsement, $30 million in revenue that they have. Laws, that's about 12% of their...

Yeah, 10% have digital subscribers right now. But it's probably more. It's probably accelerated. Boy, has he shit the bed? Let me just tell you, it's not the reporters of the Washington Post, some of the editors, some of the editors have been weak in need as far as I'm concerned. But boy, he made a mess of this, man. That piece was very obnoxious, I thought, and very old school. I was like, oh, really? The media is not liked. Did you just check into this problem we've got?

Never mentioned Trump's attacks on the media. Never mentioned social and searches impact on the media, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. His response was well written. He attempted to debunk the notion that there was any connection between... He claims that he had no idea that Blue Origin was meeting with the Trump campaign. There's no getting around it. The optics are really bad.

And generally speaking, in terms of governance, when you own a media property going into an election, and you're the owner, and you are not, the publisher, you're not, like Arthur Salzberger in the building involved every day, you are just a quote-unquote passive owner. You stay the fuck out of their knitting, leading up to an election of this anxiety and importance. Where you have a lot of business interests that are clear. You're just... You have conflict.

You want to plaza... I love the term plazable deniability. So if they had screwed up and they decided to do this or not do it or whatever they did, he can say, folks, I spent $350 million of my own money because I think this is an important institution. Is it $250? Wow, he got it for a song, didn't he? He did, yes. Anyways, he spent $250 million to get a big fucking headache. Anyways, but if he'd said, I believe in this, and I think his initial motivation was actually pretty noble here.

And I would argue he's been a decent steward because he's kept his hands at... He should not be making editorial decisions as a passive owner that occasionally shows up to talk to people, to flex his biceps and talk to people and give them a rally speech. He should be able to say, what... I get to decide who runs the thing and then beyond that, they get to do what they think is best. Let me just... Let me make a further argument. Owners do this. They do. They do insert themselves.

And he never had, and to do it a week before the... 10 days for the election was astonishing. He never had, and then he does it right now. And then he's like, oh, it was like bad timing or bad planning. Terrible. I'm like, you know what? You were at a Katy Perry party. I saw pictures of you. It's sunset. You had no time, sir. He had plenty of time to... If he really... This really meant a lot to him to do it. It looked... I don't think he knew Dave Limp was meeting with Trump.

I don't necessarily, but I do know that... There doesn't have to be a quick pro-quode to understand that your business interests are problematic here at best, right? Not even at best. They are problematic. Second thing is, his tone in this piece was someone who is just checked into the media ecosystem. I was literally like, 2008 is calling and wants its billionaire back, essentially.

It was such an old idea of the media, and without leaving in other factors that are so obvious to someone as smart as this guy, was sort of perplexing. And then the Tisk-Tisk tone was really... Couldn't you just say, oh, did I make a fuck up? Because this is my fault, clearly. This is all my fault. I didn't read it, though. I read it. I read it as a solid letter with the right tone. The issue was, is you read it, though? No one in media liked it. I can tell you that.

It was like Daddy was lecturing us about his own fuck up. He smashed the car into the wall, and it's not us. We didn't smash the wall into the car. Well, okay. Just one person's opinion. I read it. Everybody's opinion. But go ahead. Go ahead, you are person. Okay. So far as far as I know, I do have domain over my own opinion.

So this person's opinion is that the tone, and it was well written, and you made the points you needed to make, the problem is, if you look at the fact pattern and you look at the timeline, you read it, and if you've been following this, as I have, quite frankly, Jeff, it sounds as if you're lying. And so I thought the tone was right. I thought you'd made the right points, but quite frankly, after reading it, I just don't believe them.

I don't believe this is all a coincidence, and it all stinks. And again, for me, it goes back to governance. When you're worth $150 billion, and you're off doing other things, which you deserve to do, have the right to do, and you buy a media company, you stay the fuck out of the meeting, especially two weeks before the election. Yeah. I don't know why he just didn't say I made a mistake. The guy who ran PR for him says he has convenient principles.

A long time ago, he said, a long time ago, I said to Bezos, who was around the long, he was very much right with Bezos. Criticized his Carriedly Glass Minute decision by the Washington Post leadership to abandon presidential endorsement, said he believes the move reflected classic Bezos business principle about protecting your self-interest by avoiding unnecessary mistakes. He said it was convenient principles. And I think he was right. I think this guy is a business guy. This is Bezos.

Every time there was a mistake at Amazon and an actual mistake they made, Bezos never apologized and were indignant. And that's why I think I react this way because he used to do this all the time when they made clear mistakes. It was our fault. It was always someone else's fault put himself, which is very classic tech, bro, but he can't do that here. I just saying here is the wrong place to do it. But let's go matter on the notion or the concept of apologizing.

Traditionally in business, when you said, I on this, I got this wrong. I'm going to make this right. That was an opportunity to increase trust amongst your constituents. Unfortunately in this ecosystem, still with business, I do think it makes sense to apologize. But unfortunately most of the incentives now are to never apologize. And because the people you pissed off don't forgive you.

And everyone else is like see, I told you say they're all the incentives kind of line up around not only not apologizing, but quite frankly doubling down. And until people until until people start saying good on him, he apologized. I'm subscribing back, but they don't it piss. I remember when, and this is a totally different thing, but when I was doing this show for Bloomberg television, and they asked me to do promos.

And I went and did these, but I thought we're funny and what they initially really like. I thought they were funny. I appreciate that. And then they came out, they said, we have Houston, we have a problem. You've offended some people in the newsroom. So we need you to say that you did this without our knowledge and we need you to apologize. And I said, I'll absolutely do the former. I'm not doing the latter because I'm not sorry. And it wouldn't help anyone.

So because apologizing one, I do believe in apologizing. I just apologize to my kids the other day. And I do think that in business, you have to say, I'm doing a business meeting today. I bet on a concept for our company that took everyone off track. I was wrong. I'm not going to apologize, but I'm going to acknowledge the mistake and say, I own this. I think in business, good leaders do that. Unfortunately, with social media and the media, all you do is keep the cycle going.

You know, it midst mistake. It midsts it was a blunder. People, people attack you from both sides. Could he just take in it like this was my decision. I see the impact. I'm sorry to the way I see the internal. I've been called by dozens of Washington Post people. They really love this newspaper. And I just think he doesn't he's acting like the Amazon CEO. I remember him to be in a situation that he cannot do that in. This is a very different creature. He did not buy it to make a lot of money.

It's he can't treat it like it's Amazon and just get leave. Get out, get out. This get out if you don't like it. Every billionaire that goes into media leaves regretting it. They should. There's a wonderful movie all quiet on the Western front. Oh, it's great movie.

And you know, it's just such an incredibly tragic story about the 17 and 18 year old German kids who basically think they're going to be play a sport and end up in just the most brutal trench warfare watching their friends be maimed as they fight over the same hundred yards or a hundred meters of land. And this is don't any one way want to diminish what their experience. But every I can't think of a billionaire that's gone into media and thought that was fun. I mean, you own a football team.

You might end up selling. Yeah, he should have bought a football. He should have bought the baseball team. You know, occasionally your fans don't like you, but on the whole, I think most billionaires who buy a basketball or football team think, yeah, that was a kick in the ass. And I got to hang out with players and it was fun and all my friends thought I was cool. I name a billionaire and there's probably been a dozen billionaires who have bought a media company recently.

Recently, name one who thought, wow, that was a great idea. I agree. I agree. I think it's got to be in the hands. You know, here I'm giving a compliment to Rupert Murdoch. He runs his things because he understands media. He does not. You may listen. He manipulates the post in your post and stuff like that. I never had a problem with him at the never, never in a million years would he do this. Well, he understands the journal. He understands the position. He understands media.

These guys think if there's a nail, I'll hit it with a hammer. The last part is the problem is he's perpetrated a number of difficulties on this paper, including the hiring of Will Lewis with all that controversy, right? So they've gone through that. They've now gone through this. This is in a very short amount of time. It's just like making trouble here for these people who are trying their very best at a very difficult speaking of political partisanship environment.

He's just brought nothing but shame on them in that regard or mistakes. You know, who's going to pay for this? Because he's not poning up the money would be my guess because he's quite cheap in many ways. They're going to lay off reporters. And then the quality of the product gets worse. It's unfortunate. Jeff, you can do better. This is not your Amazon warehouse or the people. Don't make them work on a door, Jeff. That was his big thing, remember? We work on doors because we're cheap.

Don't do that here. You don't have to over fund this, but don't be such a... Just don't behave the way you're naturally inclined to here and maybe give these people a fact in break because they're doing a great job. But let's just review a few of these purchases and purchasers and think did this work out from? Remember when Jared bought the observer? Yeah. That's the most. Do you remember when Sam Zell bought the Tribune? That was a mess. He's also a jerk. But go ahead.

Do you remember that kid Chris Hughes who bought the Republic? Oh, yeah. Nice guy. Oh, that was a mess, wasn't it? I think Lorraine Powell jobs has done a good job. You know her better than I do. If she could go back in time, would she buy the Atlantic again? I think so. I think she feels good. I think she's got some good people in play. I think she's... If you had to pick one, she's the best one, but it's a small property, right? Let's play her. Let's go. I'm not sure. You would do it again.

He's emulated $30 billion. I understand, but I think he loves... He loves the attention. It's worth a ten. It's a good investment. It's a good investment. It's a small investment. Benny off in time, maybe, but he bought that for scrap. Yeah. These things are just... Patrick Sunchong. Lots of times. And the early times. Well, and we have a couple of friends who we really like who just bought the daily beast or partnered with Barry Diller.

I'll be curious what they think in a year or two years because you're trying to... You're trying to stem the flow of a river. I mean, you are swimming upstream in these traditional media companies. In addition, the few times I've been in a newsroom, I've been struck about how talented these people are, how hardworking they are, and how fucking precious they think they are, and that they shouldn't be subject to the same economic realities the rest of us are. No, that is not true. They get it now.

They have gotten it now. I don't agree. I left the post because of that. And I think every single person in media does understand that. They do not think they're special. They think they're less than special. I would disagree with you on that. In any case, we'll see where it goes. If you care a swiss rule by the Washington Post, that's what apparently it was written about recently.

The way the Washington Post, it should be a group of very wealthy people who see like a civic value, which the Washington Post does add. They put together a trust of multiple parties, so no one personality gets crucified. That's right. They get to hire and fire the guy or gal who runs it, and that's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. And if they want to raise money or if they want to sell the post, they have to come to this trust.

But other than that, the trust is like a star chamber of people. Safety and numbers, rich people, safety and numbers. And then say, have people like Karen Scott there to take the shit? We're good at it. And we can push around other reporters. You know, stuff that I need. And I'm being on boards. Oh, yes. No, I was thinking more my assistant for you. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of pivot.

Margaret Brennan is the moderator of Face the Nation and CBS's Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent, Margaret, welcome. Thank you. We brought you here because we need to calm the fuck down. And you are. We always feel good when we go on Margaret Brennan's show because you're so like even handed and very clear and calming. So that's what your job here is. Thank you. I went to Catholic school in my life. So I just keep it all inside. Keep it inside and later comes up. It's all sublimated.

And then rage comes out later. You know, rage eat or rage exercise or whatever. So election day is fast approaching. Do you think anything is going to change the minds of people who haven't voted yet? Let's, everything is 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, and I actually, it seems like it is indeed this time, 50, 50. Right. That question. I think the unpersuaded voters left in a country that is this divided. I don't know the answer to that.

What I can say is the fraction of the populace that I think the campaigns are most focused on are the voters who are on the line about whether or not they get in the car and they bother to go and show up on November 5th, the low propensity voter. So their minds might be made up, but they might feel fine just liking tweets or whatever from their couch. They're not they cast the vote is what particularly Democrats are concerned about.

And that is where the campaigns are putting their emphasis because it's going to come down to turnout in a 50, 50 election and just an election potentially won on the margins, potentially here, one of the closest presidential races in history. So why are the Republicans concerned about low propensity voters because, you know, this is the bro dude that doesn't get off the couch and maybe in fact, Stone, like, you know, it's that gang who doesn't vote at all. Like I know lots of those people.

Well, what's kind of amazing and it hit me in particular when I was out of the RNC this summer in Milwaukee was realizing what Trump has done for his movement, not necessarily Republican movement, which is to activate a lot of those low propensity voters, you know, the folks who are not Bush Republicans, but are the kid rock Republicans who were loving that at the RNC who were chanting the Massey Portation now chance with the signs.

He has activated that and that is that base vote that at least says they are going to show up for him, even if they didn't show up in 2022 during the down ballot races, so congressional races where traditional Republicans were perhaps more concerned about showing up. And maybe that is a way of explaining why there wasn't that red wave in 2022, but there could be a different factor at play. The Trump factor himself in 20 to 20. They love them and want to vote for exactly.

A good to see you Margaret. So inflation, bodily autonomy, immigration, kind of the issues that have been getting the most attention as the premier issues in the media. Do you think there's any one of those that will play a bigger or a smaller role than expected or is there anything we're not talking about the media? It's not talking about the you think is going to play a bigger role. We see in our polling data that the economy is the number one issue that's not surprising.

I mean, like any country I've ever gone to and covered social unrest or political strikes, it's always a kitchen table issue. So that's not surprising. What is surprising is the degree to which it is in Donald Trump's favor and the fact that people are so frustrated with the moment they're in that they have a bit of amnesia as to what the last year and a half of the Trump administration was when the economy was shut down. That's surprising to me, the selective memory portion of this.

In terms of factors that people are voting around or could influence the vote, particularly in the past few days, I've been inundated with warnings and messages of concern about an exponential increase in attempts to manipulate the minds of voters. And we need to talk about that to make the public aware. I don't want to over index that and make people somehow anxiety-ridden about their votes.

But the degree to which there are foreign actors trying to hack people's minds as some of your officials call it is of concern and maybe a real factor in the confidence level in our institutions and in the process. That concerns me because that's a day after November 5th story. That's the do we see violence the 6th of November or the 6th of January? Right. Once again, whether they get manipulated, they feel like it was stolen. And they've been, listen, it's been articulated by the producers.

They've been paid by Russia. It's been articulated by the producers who haven't been paid by Russia. Right now there's a story about major podcasts on the Washington Post about major podcasts that are doing election denialism, like on repeat, constant repeat, which is a real problem. In terms of early voting, over 58 million people have cast their ballots either in person by mail, very strong. Are there takeaways or indications how things might go from these early voting numbers?

Now more Republicans are now participating because Trump isn't saying not to. In terms of the gender gap, women account for roughly 55% of the early vote while men are at 45% according to Politico. Anything you're seeing or as it seem normal, this amount of early voting, just there's more Republicans doing it. There are more people showing up early. There are also more states who have made that possible.

So there are changes that have happened between 2020 and 2024 to just have people go and get this out of their systems before November 5th. But we'll be a factor just in terms of that early impression of the vote. You can't say which party is up or down necessarily based on this early snapshot. You just can't each county, each state, many places, processes, things in a different way. So it can look like a blue wave that then turns red, you know, the next day. So I'd stay away from that.

But I would say like it is interesting to me to see people show up early. Because that would suggest they're activated, which would suggest they're not apathetic. Or they don't want to deal with election digs or worried about violence. That's one issue I have. I'm like, I really want to be. I'm like, who knows? Not here where I am, I guess. But it definitely went through my brain. Like what possible horrible thing could happen on election day?

Yeah. I mean, that might be how my brain is wired, frankly, to worry about those scenarios. But I've been trying to make enough for on our program, at least lately, to turn to secretaries of state from these battlegrounds where you know, are going to be so heavily litigated like Pennsylvania. Yeah. And most of them are fantastic, by the way. I didn't interview with Brad Raffinsberger and Adrian Fontes. And it was great.

And they both were the same in a lot of ways, which was fantastic in that regard. It gives you confidence. It does. Yeah. I was like, oh, few. And Mark, you've covered a lot of elections and you're in broadcast, which is struggling economically, but it's still relevant. How has the coverage of this election, just using it as a marker of time? How is the business of covering elections changed?

What's different about your day-to-day job and what does it say about the state of media and how we report and shape people's views on the election? It's a great question, an anxiety-intusing question. There are a few different ways of answering it.

But in terms of how I think about my job on Sundays, I argue and I believe that the platform we have, the hour I have on Sundays, is more important than ever because, first of all, every single week I have to prove to the audience that they need to continue to have faith and trust in me because I'm really concerned about the winnowing away of trust in our institutions.

And I make journalism one of those, the fourth-estate one of those, that you need to be able to trust that I am accurately reporting to you what the Secretary of State in that state is doing and that your vote was counted, for example, or during COVID when there's a mass pandemic and I can actually tell you what the CDC is saying or not, you need to have that faith in me. So, like, that is what motivates me and concerns me.

And it's also, frankly, the one way I can exert control in an environment where we don't have much over the media environment enlarged. I can control, comes out of my mouth and the hour I have and the territory we have and just try to amplify truth at the same time it is now expected of me as a journalist to actively negate lies, right? It's not just amplifying truth. It's a half to do that and then also this other job of being able to fact-check on the fly.

All of that environment that we are in in terms of information at your fingertips has changed the job that I have to do as a moderator because it's changed the politics and how politicians seek to engage. Right. You push back rather well, but it's still waste of your time. You're not getting to actual things here. It's frustrating. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you do it in a very classy way.

There's so much screaming now that I find your program, I don't mean calming, but it's definitely clear-headed, right? And it's still waste your time, I sometimes think, is why does Margaret have to deal with this shit? Stop just let's talk about the thing. So we're not likely going to know the results election day on November 5th. That's what people think, but who knows.

It could be days or weeks for winners to determine what's your sense of what will happen in terms of people challenging results. I don't know how much you have gotten out and how ugly it might get. What's your sense from doing a lot of these interviews? Again, I think a lot of the election officials are incredibly competent both Republican and Democrat, especially on the ground, the really small localities.

And they're trying their best, but you've got these both, we've got very aggressive efforts by the Trump people in legal challenges would be my guess if they fall behind. And obviously Kamala Harris is going to do the same. You know, she's a lawyer by training and obviously she's not going to let this one get away from her if she thinks she's won. So what do you imagine is going to happen? We've already been through one insurrection and some real ugliness. Where do you see it going?

I'm really concerned. I'm really concerned about political violence. We see it in our polling that we do here at CBS concern. It not just if Donald Trump wins, if Donald Trump loses it, like either scenario, the other party believes that there is potential for violence. There's some interesting data that Robert Pave, this professor at University of Chicago has done where he saw on the left this polling question he put was is violence justified to prevent Donald Trump from taking office.

And it was pretty remarkable to see the number of yeses he got to that question. So it just reflects the level of tension there is in this country where I've had some very concerning conversations with former officials in particular who were involved in 2020 and saw things up close who are warning. You know, look, this is very possible, but local police should be able to mostly handle security.

You know, we shouldn't be back at a scenario where we're looking at 2020 like protests with violence and major cities. Well, there's certainly organizing. I've been a lot of time recently on Facebook on the malicious sites. They're quite preparing themselves. It's really, and of course, Mark's letting them go right ahead and do it. Well, that's, I mean, this is a story. Care, I mean, you know this face so well, but I've been talking to officials recently about that.

Like, how do you deal with the fact like after January 6, you saw Twitter and you saw Facebook then what tried to take Donald Trump offline or actors who were promoting violence because they saw it actually realized all that seems to be gone. Like there are no, there are no speed bumps there. And it's a cesspool and I'm concerned when I read FBI bulletins out there warning that it's, you know, it's journalists. It is poll workers. These are election workers.

I talk to these secretaries of state and they've got security. I mean, I mean, I'm Maricopa County. I asked the Secretary of State if they were putting snipers on the roof in Maricopa County because it was a news story in the United States of America. Amazing. So it's, it is. And it concerns me the information environment we're in that there are voices who want to stoke that chaos and be chaos agents and can be, you know, amplified by bad actors.

And so I think in terms of having a calm voice, we need to acknowledge that. We need to call it out. But it is, it is concerning for all of us. Yeah, taking down the temperature. Scott, question. Mark, where do you get your news? I'm a news junkie. So I'm constantly reading. I read the journal. I read the Times and read the Washington Post. I read Politico. I read it because of my time covering Wall Street. I still got some, you know, newsletters from financial analysts who I also really like.

I like people who can bottom line things for me. So I read a lot of that. The FT. But I go to trusted journalists and journalism sources. I do have to use X as an actor. But I had to take myself off of it when we did the vice presidential debate because of just the vitriol and the heat. You don't have to be on it. Trust me. I had probably had four times the amount of followers. You don't need to be on it, but that's just me. You don't use it for intake or at all? I don't. I don't use it at all.

I don't use it at all. I don't find any difference. I can find it on all the news organizations. And, you know, we didn't talk about this earlier, but threads has grown now to 275 million. It's gotten better. And I'm not a biggest fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but it's a clean place. You know what I mean? It's a relatively, there's a lot of Tisk Tisk on it with a lot of work. A lot of, on the left, but I don't mind that. They're just like, how dare you? And that's like, okay, I dare.

But the stuff on Twitter is toxic and ugly and violent. So I'm not interested in it. Doesn't help me or help me get more insight at all. News reporters have got to get off of it right away. Like that's my feeling. What is your plans for election night? There's all kinds of different ways people are getting their news. But what are you, what are you all doing? And is it, again, as Scott said, the money is tight at your organization. Although, you've got a better new owner than others.

Let me say, I happen to know him. So, I mean, it's a low bar, but that's the facts. How are you preparing to cover it? And I assume you're assuming it's going to be a week long thing. We do assume that. And, you know, in terms of allocation of resources, you still got to have reporters in the field. So we are doing that. We're going to have people in all the battlegrounds, the reporters. I'll be up in New York at our election studio that has been built out.

With all sorts of new technology to help us explain things more. I think we put a lot of deliberate thought into explaining to people, for example, and a super tight race. Stop paying attention to the popular vote. Let's remind people the paths to 270 electoral votes, right? Be very deliberate in reminding people of the benchmarks they need to watch and the battlegrounds in particular, the seven states we're watching. So we'll be doing that.

I'm digging into, because I'm a bit about policy nerd, into some of the things that are on at play, like the 10 states where reproductive health care initiatives are on the ballot, the degree to which that will impact voter turnout or not. Digging into the economy in particular, I mean, it's amazing that, you know, I was out in Eury, Pennsylvania last weekend.

And you look at Western Pennsylvania and the perception of the economy is very different than what the economic data would tell you on a national scale. So understanding regionally, what's impacting how people feel about the country we're in right now is something I've been putting thought into. And of course, national security, the world is on fire.

So connecting those dots is something I'm going to be trying to do on election night with Nora O'Donnell and Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson and our whole team. Right. Got a great team. And we're glad you're there, Margaret. We really are. You can catch Margaret every Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. And she'll of course be part of the CBS as she noted election night coverage. We look forward to watching. Thank you for having me. I love listening to the podcast.

Thanks Margaret. All right, Scott isn't she the best? I love Margaret. She is. She really is a pro. She's a pro. Pro is how I think her absolutely she just makes connects dots, which is why I like her not not all these people do. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. For Pivot comes from Netflix.

The critically acclaimed series The Diplomat, which I love returns for its second season starring Carrie Russell whom I adore a deadly explosion in the heart of London shatters US ambassador Kate Wileers world as she struggles to rebuild the lives that broke and help her team that's been split apart. Kate's worst fears unfold. The attack may have come from inside the British government. Watch the diplomat now playing only on Netflix.

And after you binge the series, listen to the diplomat, the official podcast wherever you get your podcast. Support for Pivot comes from Anthropic. If your company could tap into a powerful source of knowledge, analysis and create a problem solving, imagine what you could achieve. Innovative ideas could be realized faster than ever. Cloud, the AI system from Anthropic, empowers your team to rise to new levels of productivity and innovation by providing vast knowledge and rapid analysis.

With Cloud, your existing talent and harness cutting edge AI to work smarter brainstorm bigger and pursue visionary goals, complementing human ingenuity. What a word salad. I'm going off script just to tell you, I, no joke, use cloud almost every day. I think it's fantastic. Cloud is next generation AI assistant built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability.

Anthropics midway model, Cloud 3.5 Sonic can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more whether your brain storming alone or working on a team with thousands of people. All at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, you need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs or generate heaps of secure code. Cloud is a great way to save time and money.

Plus, the Anthropic leadership team was founded in AI research and built Cloud with an emphasis on safety. To learn more, visit Anthropic.com slash cloud. Support for the show comes from HubSpot. Picture this. You're out of party and someone asks you what you do as a marker. How do you even begin to describe it? You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and tomorrow. Do it all again. And wonder if it's even work and marketers are spread way too thin.

But HubSpot has a better way. With the help of breeze and tools, including content remakes, now you can turn up one piece of content into a suite of assets. Penpoint the best prospects with predictive lead scoring and level up your campaign's KPIs with a new analytic suite. So your day-to-day becomes less busy work and more driving revenue through the roof. And most importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more.

Okay Scott, let's hear a prediction from you. Well, I don't know, prediction and aspiration, wish. I do think that I think Vice President Harris is going to win the election. I think there's a few things that will carry across the finish line. And when I look at the attributes of, must be sexist girls, they're more organized. They are a little bit more meticulous.

And I think when it comes to election day, I think a lot of young women are going to find a way to schedule time and get to the booth in a lot of young men, just bottom line. As someone who's raising young men, I have actually called them dopes. They're prefrontal cortex does not catch up until the age of 25. They're not voting right? Because they're too young. Well, yeah, once 17, I asked them, I asked them, who would you vote for?

And he goes, well, I vote for Harris because you're voting for it. And I'm like, I hate and love that answer. Anyways, but my point is, I think that you're going to see more, I think women are motivated, quite frankly, they're more organized, they're more meticulous. And I think, I don't want to say they take their civic response, they're just more organized. Girls do better in school. I think girls or young women are going to do better at showing up on the election day.

I've had more of them have already, and I don't have the day to air too. I'd like to think that young men are getting a message around a need to protect, or I'd like to think that that's a theme that's resonating here, that they do see that there is a certain level of demonization and attack for special interest groups. And I'd like to think they're stepping up. And three, and again, I don't know, this might be confirmation bias.

I'm just too emotional here, but I think the self-inflicted, unforced error around Puerto Rico with four to 500,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania could be very, very problematic. Could be a big issue. And so close to the election, it really is. Yeah. And again, my gut might be overwritten by my emotions here, but my gut is that she's going to pull this out. That's my prediction. Let me just read something. I'm going to go pile on to you thing.

By the way, everyone should read Scott's endorsement of Kamala Harris. It's essentially if you want to have sex, vote for, if you want to be an in-sell vote for Donald Trump. I think I pretty much boiled that down, right? Is that correct? It's a very funny. Last more, and I knew this was going to happen. Last more subscribers than I've ever lost in a single day. Well, I think it's very funny and fun to read. I love to. It's worth it.

What's the point of being wealthy and having people who love you if you don't speak your mind? I know, but it also is a really good read. I think it's a great test. Even Amanda was like, I thought, Scott, what? And then I'm like, oh, good argument, Scott. You also go, Scott, what? And then he's like, I must give it to him in any case. I'll tell you, I have, let me read this to you.

This Wall Street executive's political gamblers and cryptocurrency traders are piling on their bets that former president Donald Trump is returning to White House. But the stock market may be telling a different story. US stocks have been on a tear with a bell, whether S&P 500 is climbing more than 10% since August. Well, the stock market is not necessarily representative of the broader economy.

The S&P 100's performance in a run-up to election has historically been a strong indicator of whether they can come in parties candidate who have trained control of the White House correctly, forecasting all but for presidential races over the last 96 years. So interesting. So they, they looks, that's the actual stock market, which is very hard to manipulate, is saying. And that's the one I would test. I have one quick prediction.

I went and saw I'm interviewing the director of Wicked soon, John Chu, who I love. I went to see Wicked yesterday and Amanda came with me. The movie Wicked? The movie Wicked. Oh, good for you. Fucking spectacular. It's going to win every Oscar. I got to tell you one of the best. Who's in it? Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arevo are the main characters. I have to tell you, both of them, there's, they are spec, it's like Barbie times two. I don't know what it is, but it's so, it has so much weight.

Also very hairy potter in a way, all the other characters are astonishing also around them. Michelle, you bow and yang is in it. There's all these astonishing, Jeff Goldblum. It's an amazing movie and it's substantive. It is beautiful. The costumes, the special effects. And at the heart of female speaking of females bringing it to female friendship, these two are Ariana Grande, blew me the frig away. Arevo is the anchor of this movie, but they are so electric together as a relationship.

It's going to win all the Oscars. That's my prediction. Huge hit coming for Universal. I have to say I was, I did not expect it. I thought it would be good because it's a good story, but it is something really fantastic. I recommend. And it's going to be like a Taylor Swift concert for girls. And I think a lot of boys will go because it's got a hairy potter dog to it too. Anyway, that's our show.

I want to mention several people reached out following our conversation last week about a mother suing character AI over her teenage son's death. A few of you pointed out a part of the story that was perhaps even more troubling. Let's listen. While there was an excellent critique on character AI, you felt the mention the role of the gun. The gun things a bit beyond us here outside the US. And for it to not even be part of the story really does St. Chills.

Kevin Rus' full story detailed how the parents knew prior to his death that their son was depressed. And yet his stepdad left a gun unlocked in a drawer in the home. Wasn't the stepfather contributing factor in this tragedy for not properly securing the weapon in the first place? The story could have been about a tragic suicide attempt connected to character AI. But instead, he is dead. Parents can't monitor their kids online activity 24-7.

But they can, and they must keep guns out of their children's reach at all times. These clips were from Steve Sachs, Kate Darrow, and Sierra Foxx. We really appreciate it. It was a very good point to make in a terrible, terrible story, not just about AI, but about guns in this country. Thanks to everyone who called in, we want to always hear from you, and you're always incredibly thoughtful. Most of you. So send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivots. By the way, most is doing a lot of work in that sense. Well, those are just letters to you, Scott. And I'm glad you do that endorsement, Scott. Fuck people. You know what? It was good. Go read it, everybody. And by the way, I just want to say everyone who on subscribe, full refund coming your way. Yeah. Full refund. And I endorse Scott, Ali. I have nothing to sell you. You can't. You can't unsubscribe. You don't have to lose this. That's right.

I don't want to be right. Also, go to nymag.com slash pivots. To submit a question for the show, we're called 855-1pivot. And don't forget to send us your photos. If you dressed up as me or Scott on threads, one last note elsewhere in the carat and Scott universe, Scott, you talked with your favorite geopolitical expert, Ian Bremmer, on PropG this week. Really smart guy. Let's hear a quick clip. Well, I'm talking in part about the relationship between China and the United States.

That I mean, we are heading towards confrontation. But both countries are trying to avoid sudden crises and ensure through a lot of high level communication that the relationship doesn't deteriorate any faster than it needs to and any more broadly than it needs to. The Americans are doing that, I think, in part because we've got our hands full with a couple of different wars and an election cycle. The Chinese are doing that because their economy is performing worse than I've ever seen it.

Certainly since the early 90s, maybe since the 70s, I was just in Beijing a couple of weeks ago. I spent the week there. And every provincial government is bankrupt. That's very thoughtful from his mouth to everybody's ears. We cannot get in a war with any kind of war. Nice guy, too, more importantly. Good guy to have drinks with. Nice man. Yeah. That's really good. Of course. I urge everyone to go listen to it because Ian Smarke. You're stressed and generous today. It's unique cocktail.

I'm not used to. You are very high strong and also generous. I know. What do you want? Why would I be generous? It was shitty. I would say it was shitty, but it's not shitty. Don't be shitty, Scott. That's all. You're take on basis, as well. That's good advice. On that essay was so badly written and I'm going to go through it line by line with you. Okay. Just copy editing. Just copy editing. That sounds like torture. I know. I know. My kids hate it when I do that. That's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Neymann, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Earn your Neetortat, engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrow, Smith Savario, and Dan Shulon. In the shot, Kerwa, it's Vox Media's executive producer of audio, make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine at Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things, tech, and business. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and takes stock of the blessings of the best decision they've ever made and that is to live and vote in America.